Days Of Future Passed
by Kleenexwoman
Summary: It worries George sometimes that his clearest memories aren’t the right ones, or at least not the ones that he really thinks he should remember.


Written for the contrelamontre "forbidden love" challenge.

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It worries George sometimes that his clearest memories aren't the right ones, or at least not the ones that he really thinks he should remember.

His wedding day, for example. A blur of white and silver, vague sensations of champagne in his mouth and the smell of incense in the tiny Catholic church his father insisted they drive six hours to, glimpses of grass and blue sky. He can't remember how the words "I do" sounded in his ears, can't remember what Lorraine looked like in her wedding dress (faded color pictures in the photo album only serve to jog memories of the photo album itself, not of any concrete event), can't remember the taste of cake or what song they danced to at the end of the night. He knows he must have been nervous, exhilarated, completely in love…but he can't recapture that feeling and that time and that day.

Days to keep pressed in your memory in clear cellophane plastic, spread out for the world to see. They fade around the edges, jumbled out of order. The only ones that stick in his mind are the ones he knows he's not supposed to have, ones he keeps locked away in mental albums with plain brown paper covers…

The boy he'd met in his senior year, in that scriptwriting class where the professor never opened the windows during the summer semester. They sat next to each other, mutually admiring doodled UFOs and bug-eyed monsters, comparing notes when the professor mumbled or erased too many lines. Treating each other to coffee or milkshakes at the malt shop just off campus after class, quick touches on the arm and veiled allusions in a code that neither of them really understood.

They'd gone back to the boy's apartment, tattered posters and charcoaled half-drawings taped to the walls, plasticine dinosaurs scattered on every surface. He'd explained that he made them in his spare time, hurriedly sweeping armfuls of the tiny lizards off the bed, then picking them up and trying to arrange them on shelves, growling in frustration when they fell over. George had picked one up and tried to move its miniature limbs, marveling at the detail worked into its scales.

Eventually the boy had given up on his dinosaurs and they had sat next to each other on the bed, leaning in to slip curling tongues into each other's mouths, sweaty hands sliding over denim as furtive as if they were back in the stuffy lecture hall holding hands under flip-up desks. Even as the boy slid out of his T-shirt and worked his mouth across George's neck, he still felt as though there had been some kind of strange mutual misunderstanding, that none of this was meant to happen—they were really hunched over a rickety card table talking about line breaks or dinosaurs or Hollywood storytelling trends, not trying to fuck on a sagging bed that was already far too small for just its owner.

It was awkward, slippery, sweaty, fingernails digging into the wrong places and limbs falling asleep, quick bitten-off apologies, perched on top of each other like the textbooks that were in danger of sliding off the narrow shelves next to the bed. They could barely look at each other afterwards, each sure that it had been the most horrendously disappointing sexual experience they'd ever shared.

They could have been friends, George thought later, could have made movies together or just kept in touch after graduation. But every time they talked after that, the conversation slid into mutual remembrance, mutual embarrassment; impossible even to look at each other without recalling the way the other boy's face looked as he came. The awkwardness and shame is still burned onto his brain. The memory pops up at the stupidest times, making him cringe in the middle of the night or blush for no reason at the dinner table.

He'd rather remember the night he proposed to Lorraine, just a few months after graduation. Sometimes he closes his eyes and tries to recall the look on her face, whether she was surprised (she makes that face he loves, where her mouth turns into a perfect O and then she smiles, dimples appearing in her cheeks) or whether she already knew and was pretending to be shocked. Tries to remember whether they were in a fancy restaurant or somewhere sweet and smalltown like the diner, or just in his parents' kitchen. He knows it was after dinner, and that she squealed and kissed him. But he can't remember who else was there, can't remember whether he gave the engagement ring to her before dessert or at midnight or what exactly he said anyway. He must have it locked away in his brain somewhere, the sight of the ring glittering on her hand…but she never wears it anymore anyway. So what does it matter?

She wasn't there at the second open mic night Phil and Junie had dragged him to, insisting that his amateurish experiments with beat poetry were just as worthy as his slowly evolving science fiction stories. He'd grabbed the microphone and stared at the chicken scratches in his notebook, his voice cracking at the end of each line, not daring to look at the beatniks and baby poets in the audience until each page was hanging over his hands and all that was left was blank blue lines.

He'd walked off the little stage hearing fingers snapping instead of applause, just relieved not to be booed, anonymous hipster hands patting him on the back, incomprehensible words of praise. Fell into an overstuffed chair, eyes closed, clutching his notebook.

"Hey. Good job up there."

Opened his eyes to see black. Soft black leather jacket and jeans fading to grey, archetypical black turtleneck with a smiling pale face and black glossy hair. "Thanks."

"That one poem was really groovy, man. Kind of reminded me of Ginsberg."

George didn't really know who Ginsberg is, but he didn't want to admit it to this stranger who thought so highly of him. "Yeah, I guess."

The beatnik grinned. "Hey. You want to blow this joint for a few minutes?" And five minutes later he was thinking _oh, so that's what he meant_, pressed against the brick wall in the alleyway in back of the coffee shop, the pale man-in-black's mouth wrapped around his cock. His hands dug into the man's scalp, glossy black hair sliding under his fingers. He could see bleach-blond roots, wondered what color his hair really is. Maybe he dyed it to match his outfit. George knew girls dyed their hair, he'd never heard of a boy doing it, but this was Berkeley and there were a lot of things he hadn't heard of and this was certainly one of them…

He almost cracked his head against the brick wall, and when his vision cleared, the beatnik was zipping him up. George tried to think of something to say. "Do you, um, go to school here?"

The beatnik stood up. "What, me? Heh, no. I'm just passing through for a few weeks."

"Oh…" This was disappointing. He tried not to show it.

"Why, do you? Grad student?"

"Freshman."

The beatnik looked horrified. "You're a frosh? Like, right out of high school?" He shook his head. "Oh man. Not cool. You're, like, a _kid_."

"I'm nineteen," George protested. _You didn't think I was just a kid when you said you liked my poem…_

The beatnik held his hands up in protest. "Hey, nineteen. You didn't tell me you were a _teenager_. Jeez, you're not even old enough to drink. This is heavy, man. I don't do that kind of stuff. I thought you were older."

"You never asked…" But the beatnik had cut, flown, blown the joint.

He remembers that brief encounter better than he remembers the first time he made love to Lorraine. Actually, he can barely remember _any_ time he made love to Lorraine. It's not as though their sex life is so boring or frustrating that he has to block it out of his mind. It's just that he can't remember any particular time or place, any particular lovemaking session—they all blur into one in his mind. He can remember abstracts, generalities. The warm weight of her breasts in his hands, the way she tastes when she's aroused, how she gasps when she comes. These are universal, built up from twenty-five years of marriage. He thinks that maybe this means he doesn't_ need_ to remember, doesn't need to concentrate on fixing each time in his mind. He's got Lorraine stored in his memory, not an event or a moment, but _her_.

He tries sometimes to force the other memories, change them, overwrite the college experiences with her face, her hands, her mouth. It's hard to imagine her pushing him against the wall of a coffeeshop or sprawled out on a carpet of plastic dinosaurs, but it's a necessity; he doesn't want his memories tainted by embarrassing, imperfect, shameful sex.

There is yet one memory that he doesn't want to overwrite, one he carries around in his mind like a jewel in his pocket. Somehow, it's tangled up in the clearest memory he has of Lorraine, that of the dance where he first kissed her, of the night before. Her mouth on his is the same as that of the boy whose name he wishes he could remember, her sweet voice whispering in his ear turns into soft masculine moans. The heat of her body pressed against his, radiating attraction and perfume through layers of cloth that melt away under his touch to reveal skin slick with sweat and come. Her eyes meet his and they're the same eyes in a different face.


End file.
